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Should LNG be an option for Hawaii?

The HNEI's John Cole recently co-authored a piece for Global Island News on whether LNG should be an option for Hawaii.

Excerpt:

"For the last few years, Hawaii has been considering the importation of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as an alternative to oil and a way to lower energy costs for the State’s residents. While Governor Ige recently came out against using LNG as a solution for the electric utilities, a number of parties still support replacing oil with natural gas in a time-limited and declining volume fashion as a bridge to our renewable energy future. Studies sponsored by the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) and analysis by the Ulupono Initiative support the conclusion that a switch from oil to gas for some fraction of electricity production could both save money and reduce the risk associated with the volatility of globally influenced oil prices.

HNEI has sponsored two evaluations of importing LNG to Hawaii. The first was a high level assessment of the policy, economic and technical questions associated with LNG importation, performed by FACTS Inc. in late 2012 (FACTS Study). The second was a task within a larger electric system modeling study performed by GE Energy Consulting in 2015 (GE Study), that assessed potential savings in the cost of producing electricity with imported LNG, based on certain cost assumptions for both oil and gas."